Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 49

Fifty-fifth Year. No. 187. Price Six Cents in Minneapolis MINNEAPOLIS, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1921 emcee. fa off A' JL' 4 1 4 4 it 4 1(4'- 0 A A c- 5 32 I i 3 tw J' 'M-f' 7 -i i iW 'j (.

-j after, THE HATOLD A.PCOCTOC PARACHUTE JUMPEC 0 DOOPPED INTO ALAKEJ taus.1 cn ivi uic 'rui itc 1 CLASHED WHEN THE PLANE HE WAS TESTING (2E FUSED TO COME OUT OF ATAIU WENT UOWN 1 WU-tr AND THEM SWAM SPIN ST ACTED ZLOO aL MILES TO SHORE FEETJNTHE AlK- I ft'( SI E.E.CADVLU. HOT DECKS AT THE MCDONALD i. -On A 1 IN, Hi 1 EDWARD THIELEN.VHO FELLVVITH E.E, CADVELL AT THE MC DONALD FIEE AND WAS ALMOST RAitn i iKnnc A--: ONLV 1 MlEACLEN MlEAC a 0 6 THE SAVED F12ANK BCUNSKIL.U FIEEPATH1M. OF HOT 4 R.U.SGIGUINWMO VAS IN 7 PLACES AMD FELL 35'JTESTlNO the Giueeec: glove ON WHICH A LINEMANS. SAPETV DEPENDS 4 vALTEe eeyAMT POLICEMAN HAD It was dead.

Then I saw. an arc wire hanging down and, hke a fool, I had to tap it with my fingers. Sayl It had crossed over a 4,000 volt wire and I had wet feet and no rubber gloves. Believe me, I knew nothing for halt an hour. Fool's luok that I'm not lying where Titus and the others are." "No aviator lives on borrowed time, or has narrow escapes," said W.

A. Kidder of the Curtlss Northwest Aeroplane company. "In our business NELI5 PETECSON. CEVOLVEP POKED IN HIS STOMACH AND SAV THREE MEN aVTN '7 SNAPPED BUT.TeiGGER. DIDN'T ELECTEOCUTED AND STILL PLAVED WITH ALIVESVIBE 'M LIVING on' borrowed imp." said rri'itw.

"-'-1'f can't throw a scare into me." Klectricians daily and' hourly take rlxl-s that wpuul make the average man's hair stand on Some them have come so near death by electrocution that took back, their lives with the fetllng that they were a loan from the power of the wires a loan that might any moment be called in. U. L. Seguin of the. Overhead Trouhle deimrtmtnt of the Minneapolis company, once had a narrow escape from burning to death.

It was nothing uuusual, maintained, because every one ofthe 13 trouble men, "troublo shooters" they call them "for short" In the office who work daily to keep Minneapolis safe electrically, Is facing death all the, time. "It was in May, 1918, about, 3 a. m. that I received a call front' a' malting 11 company. There was at the time about DETECTIVE JAMES HO KILLED GENT2-.

we either do what wo started out to do or else we die." But there are at least two 'men In Minneapolis who have- proved more than once that this need not be true. One of them is Harold A. Troctor, 2835 Park avenue, parachute Jumper for the Federated Fliers, while the other Is Lylo A. Thro, 3100 Twentieth avenue south, 'a local pilot. "Maybe we don't have narrow escapes, but It certainly seems like it sometimes," said Proctor the other day.

"I don't want to come any nearer dying than I've como several times already. "Take at Fairmont, for instance, where I was doing some exhibition Jumping this summer. I Jumped from the plane when it was a couple of thousand feet In the air. and landed plunk in the middle of a lake, a good two and one-half miles from shore. There wasn't a boat anywhere around, and to make matters Just so much worse, I got all tangled up In my 'chute after I struck the water.

Got Free of 'Chute. "Tho more I struggled around, it seemed like I got tangled up all the more. I went down twice and got myself pretty well filled up with lake water, and I was Just getting set for tho third and they say it is the lust-time, when I finally got free of the 'chute. "By that time I was pretty weak, and it looked for a while as if I would never reach shore. There were plenty of people on the beach watching me, but they all thought it was part of the stunt.

I finally managed to swim In, though. "I had a kind of a narrow esraoe up at Marshall, too. Jack 32 lone, the pilot, didn't want me to Jump that day because there was a 45-mile wind blowing, but I didn't want to disappoint the crowd, so I took off at about 4,000 feet. Maybe you think I didn't travel. I trfcd to make for a corn field, because the air la always stiller over a corn field, but I couldn't control the parachute, and It dragged mo into a potato patch.

I was carried 200 feet scross the patch and dug up 'GENTZS CEVOLVEe DIDN'T WOCK AFTER. HAD KILLED WEAEE 7 HATS WHY KACGUIEE ISALWE 1a man onc who had narrowly ts-raped death by drowning. "I tnke It they decided It wai tlmt for me to rh In but Just got sofihvarted and de-elded to let me live a while longer. But I owe It to them, and thry won't 1ft tn forget It, you can count on that." Ttila grialy Idea of living by reluctttnt permlislon of the Fates In one thutdoim Dot distress any of the daring army of rink takers In Minneapolis who dally ttke their lives In their hands whenever they set forth on their customary duties. Many of them, policemen, lectrlc'ans, firemen, railroad men, have actually come so clone to dying that they felt already In their graves, but they grin and shrug shoulders.

I Is their Job, why should thry get excited? Rallro men take narrow escapes at a matter of courso as a part of their business; perhaps, though few have escaped deathly surh skimpy margin as W. ,11. Muse, 3340 IJupont avenue south, veteran engineer for the Minneapolis St. Louis railroad. Back In the whiter of 1897 at Wood Iike, there was a blizzard that plied the snow In great drifts on the track and packed It down so that the engine (and they built them smaller then, says Ir.

Mase) started to ctlmt) right over the top. "That time I was thrown 'onto the trround, Lord knows how, and woke up half froien, with three ribs fractured and a broken shoulder blade. You'd better believe that I had a long rest In the hospital at that time. Cheated Death Again. JUST ATELY.

In 1916, a big Omaha engine ran into me and upsot my own That was tout at Merrlam, and I was plenty bang-fed up then. I had Jumped when I saw the rods coming at nic, and I did keep Irom getting killed, but I was ruptured badly. They took me by sled six miles to the Jordan hospital where I wns Operated on without an anaesthetic; It took them an hour and a quarter to get me all cut up and sewed up. I 4on't ever want to feel my stomach )lnlng getting stitched together again. tell you that Is a queer sensation.

"I don't worry any about living on borrowed time; I came out of danger four timei or more, and I guesu I'll get along the rest of my life, It's 4t years I've been railroading, and 1 haven't got a nerve In my body. They V. kiA: a with a ladder, it didn't work very well: HAMILTON HAS INPOUe. BEEN EAtLVAY SM ASHUPS DUMPED FCOM V200FOF FOUS STOEV AND HUNG BY FOOT FBOM WINDOW A It look ages to get him down. And all tho whilo he was telling us what wires wo shouldn't touch as cool as if ho wasn't going through tortures.

Never Saw Such Nerve. OU never saw such nerve. I only hope that when my turn comes, I'll stand up to It the 35 feet below. My, collar caught on he- lowest pole stej; my clothing was ripped to the walt, but my, belt held and turned-me over, so that I alighted on my hands and forehead. 1,000 worth of malt in their vats.

which they said would spoil if it were not moved. 1 "I was to cut ofT a portion of a three phase feeder by pulling an oil switch which was on ono of two poles directly in front of our Columbia Heights substation and about 30 feet apart. Between the poles was a span guy which used for a guy hook a polo step about 30 feet from the ground. On the same pole a ground guy was so attached that the step directly below the span guy acted as Its guy hook. And neither of theie guya contained "I ascended the pole easily, and felt safe because I had rubber gloves and tho 13,000 volt tie line had been.

burned off at the station wall and was dead. Hower, I did not know that a single phaso 2300 vole lino had been broken. And this live wire had become wound around, the span guy making It 'hot. I got past the pole step guy hooks safely because my rubber gloves protected me, hut when I stepped on the guys I found to my horror that my legs and the lower part of my body formed a perfect 'ground' between the guys. "I tried to move my legs, but to no avail.

I could move, the upper part of my body, however. I looked down and backwards and see the flames playing between the span guys and the back of my left My, hold on "the upper step was slipping; I made a desperate attempt to hold on, but continued to slip until I was holding only by the tips of my fingers Then I 'plunged head first to the curb, Seven Holes Burned In Leg. J- WAS safe, except for ono sprained wrist, one broken wrist, a wrenched back and a coil of wire over his shoulder, and that made it harder for him. "It was a wet, misty tilght. I remember how Raleigh said, she's hot', and kept trying to knock tho wire away.

Ho 'had one hand on tho iron bridge; then he fell, and wo think broke his neck. lie lay there on a coll and it got him again. When I got there, Con's cotton gloves were still burning, but -nobody could do nny-thing for him or Raleigh. Thoy shouldn't have left off their rubber gloves. "And then there was Ora Titus, that got burned to death last July, when he was trying to repair some telephone wires.

He fell off tho top of a power olrcult polo onto, some wires where there was a 4,000 volt current, and l.ty there on a cross arm with the flames shooting along his right side. Seven of on the same pole tried to do something, but couldn't without dying When the firemen came "We all expect tho same thing some day and would bo awfully surprised to find ourselves dying of pneumonia or something liko that. The Idea of death hanging over a fellow gives him tho kind of excitement a lot of us need. I wouldn't change my work, no matter what you'd offer me. The colder and wetter and stormier tho day, the more I look forward to my work; and that's lucky because It's Just such days that we have the most to do.

"But it Jars a man a little to see his friends killed. I was working on the samo Job with Raleigh and Con Erickson; they had a wire they thought was dead. I was on the same circuit, and thought I had found the troublo. So I told the load dispatcher to turn, on the tub, that Is the current. And he called back that he'd have tho, Jule ready In a minute.

Then Raleigh handed Con a knife, the wires crossed over eotnehov, and the current' bit Into Con. He hud a heavy way Titus did. He wanted a clgaret; couldn't even lig! it or put It between his tooth, but wo did that for ltltn; and ho grinned. We tried to cheer him up, tho fool way people will. But ho JUHt grinned again sarcastic, and reached slowly over with his left hand.

Ho pulled two Angers off his right hand and lifted them up. deathly ulnw. 'I guess that looks like something was tho matter with ho said. And we didn't have any answer ready for that. "Titus couldn't help what happened to him, but lots of times a man takes a chance when he hadn't ought to.

Like me two years ago when I got called out to Quean avenuo south nnd Forty-second and found a cop there watihlntr a circuit wire that was down. gavo ft a kick and found a dozen hills of potatoes before I final leg In which the electricity had burned seven holes. I dragged myself to my car and somehow drove to the. house of 'a friend, honked tho horn to attract his, attention, and then fainted. It was weeks before I was at work again." Another Time Borrower.

The sight of three men dying on the at their work has not kept Nols Peterson, trouble man for the Minneapolis General Electric company' from feeling an enthusiasm for his work. "It's all in the day's work," he sold. ly stopped. That time I sprained both a.ik1s and fractured a shoulde- Th farmer came running out of "ie house and wanted to know if I'd dig up hi potatoes regularly for him if he paid me for It. "And then there's lots of other things (Continued on ruse.